The new US president has vowed to ‘take back’ the waterway, but there’s much more to this modern wonder than meets the eye

Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal for nearly three decades. President Trump wants to change that to counter growing Chinese influence in Latin America.

In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.